


Catching a Hawk

by NekoTiara



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin Clint Barton, Boys Kissing, Clint is not an avenger, Criminal!Clint Barton, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Gift Exchange, Gift Fic, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm Sorry, M/M, Or I tried at least, Team as Family, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, secret friends, that should be a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoTiara/pseuds/NekoTiara
Summary: Bucky received a package. Then a mission. He caught the hawk even if he lost him again. Though it wasn't a lost.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66
Collections: Winterhawk Wonderland





	Catching a Hawk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weepingnaiad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad/gifts).



> This is my gift to weepingnaiad for the Winterhawk Wonderland Gift Exchange. 
> 
> Happy Holidays! I hope this gift is a tenth of what you expected even if it isn't a hundredth of what you deserve :) This prompt was fun to write and I wished to have more time to work on it properly because I wanted to write a proper slow burn (so sloooooow) so maybe in the future I will rewrite it as a longer fanfic.
> 
> Not beta'd though... So every mistake is mine and I profoundly apologise.

**Catching a Hawk**

The bullpen was buzzing with activity by the time the Avengers arrived at the new SHIELD compound. Not that Bucky noticed, as focused as he was on finding the motherfucker that had fucked the mission up. 

Someone was calling him from the side and only Steve’s hand on his shoulder stopped him from doing something utterly stupid to the young mail girl that decided it was a good idea to approach Bucky when he was pissed enough to wring her neck. 

“This arrived today, it has been scanned and it’s safe,” she hurriedly stated and pushed the box into his hands as soon as he directed his murder glare at her, “have a nice day, Winter Soldier, sir!” 

The team snickered behind him as the woman walked away with hunched shoulders, “Shuddup!” he growled and ripped the package apart uncaring of the scared looks people gave him as he passed them on his way to the debrief room. 

The inside was a surprise, and he wondered how the hell SHIELD thought it a good idea to let it go through when they were so adamant on security and all that shit, HYDRA was still out there after all. Inside the box laid a phone, one of those Bucky saw in gas stations that looked twenty years too old to even exist.

He turned it around, wondering why the fuck someone would send him a phone and found a sticker with a four-digit number, which the soldier assumed was the password and it turned out it was as the phone slowly, so slowly turned on. 

The team was talking around him, cups of coffee served while they waited for Maria Hill to show up for their debriefing and the chiming noise of a new message incoming. Bucky thought of just ignoring it but, well… Steve wasn’t the only one who made poor life decisions he thought while opening the message. 

The message that happened to be a location, a time and a bow and arrow emoji. What. The. Fuck? He straightened and frowned because there was only one person who would use such a stupid emoji and well… Bucky had a bone to pick with said person. Except the time was half an hour ago and the location was on the other side of the motherfucking city! 

“I need a jet,” he stated and got up so fast the chair slammed against the wall. He ignored the surprised looks of his teammates but gave the phone easily enough to Natalia when she held out her hand. “I need to be there  _ ASAP. _ ”

“It could be a trap,” she mussed after reading the message and passing the phone to Steve who nodded afterwards.

“Or a way to finally get them behind bars,” Thank God someone thought like him, which said a lot considering it was Tony Stark who was a genius! Bucky must be a genius as well, the soldier smiled at the thought. “I’m tired of them messing with missions.”

“Or they could have left already, it was half an hour ago?” Bruce placed the phone on the table and they all exchanged a look. “But… why would they send anything to Bucky?” 

“I don’t care.” And he didn’t. If he were someone else, he would have cared about the reason a hitman was sending him a package with a meeting point. 

Bruce stayed behind to fill Maria in and Natalia got a jet ready for them and they flew straight to the closest point where the quinjet wasn’t going to be noticeable. Tony and Steve were going to be acting as a cute couple taking a walk - yeah because Tony and Steve were such an inconspicuous couple - as a back-up. 

While on the jet, Bucky couldn’t help but think of all the times he and the team were deployed for some top-secret mission, world-saving quests, to find their mark already dead or almost dead. He thought of all the missions that were sabotaged by the same person and how long it had taken them to notice that they were all meddled with by the same fucking person. 

At first, Bucky had been filled with an undeniable feeling of admiration. Their targets weren’t good people, not for a long stretch, and to have them killed instead of locked for life was better in Bucky’s mind. 

And yet, with every target thas was taken from them got the team more and more worried. And Bucky got angrier each time. Was someone trying to hide some bigger picture they weren’t seeing? Was there a mole in SHIELD they hadn’t found out? 

So, in the end, the admiration turned into a kind of hate that Bucky hadn’t felt in a long time. This meeting, if it was a meeting, was the opportunity the soldier was looking for to get his hands on the so-called greatest marksman in the world - according to Natalia, who knew everyone that was someone in the underworld. 

  
  


The spot chosen by Hawkeye -  _ Cupid, I’m calling them Cupic,  _ Tony had claimed once - was a dogs’ park and given the time it was, there wasn’t that many people around. Bucky took a walk around, got himself a nice cup of coffee, a chance to study anyone that he saw. Not that he knew what he was actually looking for. It wasn’t like he was expecting someone to have a bow and quiver on themselves! 

Finally, he sat in a benched. It was probable that Hawkeye had left already, they were an hour late. Bucky took a sip of his coffee to hide his lips from anyone that was looking, “Anyone found anything?”

“Nothing,” Tony’s voice filled his ear through the comms, “or anyone. Unless Hawkeye is a very persistent chihuahua that keeps barking at Steve.” 

“The sense of kindship is great in that little one,” Natalia added and Bucky chucked. “Small with a big attitude.”

“Yep, except the chihuahua grow into a freaking Gold retriever,” he added and it was almost funny to hear Steve groaning. 

They couldn’t keep bickering - and God, Bucky enjoyed that, the camaraderie and how utterly familiar they were - for the phone he received less than an hour ago started ringing in the brunet’s pocket. The screen showed the same phone number that had sent the message. 

“Glad to see you could make it, Sargent,” Bucky straightened in his seat, eyes darting left and right to see where the voice was coming from, “God, you look better in person.” 

Whoever was behind the call sounded… friendly? Like someone who laughed too much and helped old ladies cross the road. Somehow. “I’m surprised you’re still here,” he replied instead of looking further into what he was feeling or thinking. “You said to be here an hour ago.”

“I sent the package to SHIELD, I was expecting some delay,” The soldier imagined the person shrugging. “And this was important.”

Bucky took a sip of his cardboard cup, gave himself precious seconds to think of the proper response to that, “Important enough to risking getting caught by SHIELD?” It wasn’t a threat, but it was a threat. 

“You think you could catch me, Soldier?” the ex-assassin jerked slightly at the sudden change in intonation, from happy and easygoing to sultry and sexual? “I mean, I feel flattered that SHIELD would send not one but three Avengers after me, including the prettiest one, but I doubt you could catch me, handsome.” 

He, and it was definitely a he, had noticed just three of them, that meant that Natalia still had the surprise factor on her side and while the silence stretched between Hawkeye and the soldier, Tony was informing him of how the call was being traced by JARVIS, “Keep him talking so we can pinpoint it.” 

“And what do you think you can do to stop us from catching you?” He asked actually curious, nothing to do with how something was uncurling in his gut, “You’re one and we’re three.”

A chuckle was his first response. A second later, though, his cup had a hole and Bucky dropped it, incapable of ignoring the slight tremor of his flesh and blood hand. Ok, that was a threat, “I’m sure they would be more concerned about you than about catching me, Mr. Barnes.” 

“Was that…” Steve’s shaky voice made Bucky chuckled, kind of hysterically and kind of thrilled, “he  _ shot  _ you!?”

“I’m ready to go whenever you have his location, Tony,” Natalia’s, on the other hand, was cold, detached, clearly concerned. 

“I don’t think there’s need to get… hostile,” Bucky whispered to both sides at the same time and Steve growled while Hawkeye chortled. “But that was good coffee, ya’ know?”

“I’m sure you have enough money to get another one on your way out,” was the response he got and for a second the new Bucky took a seat back. 

“Or you could get me another one instead,” And the man from the forties, the one Steve had wanted him to be at the beginning of their relationship after Bucky was saved from HYDRA, came forward. It felt oddly good and Bucky sighed, content. 

“Trying to get me to take you out for coffee, Sargent?” The question was dripping with flirtiness once again, “because you’re certainly pretty enough for me to go for.”

Bucky could feel his face flushing and he lowered his head to hide behind the curtain of his long hair, “Not that I’m complaining about the compliments, but I thought you said whatever brought you here was important.” 

The line went silent again, “It is,” and once again the voice underwent another shift, from flirty to business in a snap. “I need the Avengers to help me with a… let’s call it business, look at the gallery on the phone.”

Bucky frowned but did so. There were maybe ten or fifteen pictures in the gallery and how come he hadn’t thought of looking more closely at the phone? The pictures weren’t pretty and each one more disturbing than the previous. 

“What is that?” Tony asked and probably he was looking at the photos through Jarvis. 

“I think those used to be people,” a shiver ran up Bucky’s spine with the idea of people turning into this. “Ask him about it, Buck.”

“Did you do that?” Alright, not what Stevie asked him to say but whatever. “Because then you’re sick.”

“I didn’t do it, Barnes, but I know who did,” the images had been seared into the soldier’s brain. If Hawkeye wasn’t behind  _ that _ , he could understand why the man sounded so tired and disgusted, “and I would have taken them out but… I can’t. Not on my own, so I thought you would like to help me.” 

“Why would we? We could just take this from you like you take our missions from us,” He wasn’t being petty, he just didn’t want to be used once again. “SHIELD has the resources to find whoever did this and stop them.”

“I know, but I’m willing to trade…” Seriousness gave way to sadness and Bucky’s heart skipped a beat without a reason to, “If you help me, I’ll turn myself in.” 

A minute went by and no one said anything. What…? What was so important about this that it would make Hawkeye turn himself? 

“Alright,” Bucky wasn’t able to explain why he accepted so fast, no questions asked, but he did and he ignored the voices of his teammates to focus all his attention on the relieved sigh that came from the phone. 

“I’ll send you the details on this phone.” And that was it. 

Not even an hour after, when Bucky was still ignoring the argument going around him at SHIELD, a new message with everything needed for the mission pinged and the plan was set in motion. 

The team arrived at the programmed location, a warehouse in the waterfront of a city in Belgium. From outside it looked rundown and empty, but JARVIS had confirmed the existence of an underground facility with at least fifty heat signals. The team was waiting in the shadows as Hawkeye had indicated and waited for a signal as specified. 

“Glad to see you could make it on time,” the person coming from behind was wearing a purple costume, the mask hiding half of his face but not the bluest eyes that Bucky had ever seen or a radiant smile. “Ready for the party?”

For a second, Bucky was ready to stand there and ask a million questions, if it weren’t for the time-sensitive mission waiting to be completed. The feeling of needing answers was probably general but the team nodded and after a brief confirmation of everyone’s part, no one talked. 

  
  


It was almost laughable how everything turned out in the end. Iron Man, Steve and the Hulk were in charge of creating a distraction while the Winter Soldier and Black Widow focused on retrieving whatever piece of information that could tie these motherfuckers to human experimentation and a threat to do whatever the first victims went through to the rest of the city and Hawkeye provided back-up and helped whoever was held at the facility out of the hell they were put through by those sickos. 

Bucky had the impression that this was just a cell in a bigger operation, suspicious that was proven correct with each new piece of information founded in the underground lab’s computers. 

At the end, when the warehouse was set on fire and the Avengers waited outside for the first responders to arrive, Hawkeye stood to the side, bow and quiver missing and with the utmost relieved look, he didn’t look like a person that was going to jail, but Bucky didn’t care as he walked to him with the handcuffs ready. 

It was strange how after the whole thing had passed, he noticed that Hawkeye was tall, taller than him at least, not overly, just inches taller but enough to be noticeable, he also noted that while Hawkeye’s shoulders were broader than expected, the soldier was broader. Other traits to be noticed was the ruffled blond mope of hair and the subtle freckles adorning the bridge of his nose and how easily he smiled as he held his hands out. 

“Thank you,” the sincere gratitude made Bucky stop for a second and their eyes met. “For helping me here.”

“No problem, it wasn’t…” Difficult? A problem? No, it hadn’t been. There weren’t even that many people fighting back and yet, it seemed like a part of the puzzle was missing. One that Bucky didn’t feel like finding. “Glad we could be of help.”

  
  


An hour after the Avengers left the SHIELD compound, Hawkeye disappeared. Bucky wasn’t surprised, he actually laughed when Natalia told him the news. 

  
  


Two weeks later, Bucky was sitting at a cafe waiting for someone to come get his order when a cup of coffee was set in front of him and a person sat on the opposite seat. Bucky couldn’t help but stare. “I owned you one, didn’t I?”

“You did, but since you’re a fugitive I thought you wouldn’t dare,” Hawkeye -  _ Clint Barton, born in Iowa, parents deceased, one brother, code name Trickshot, both ex-carnies, both criminals  _ \- laughed and Bucky frowned, no, this man wasn’t cute. 

“I told you I was going to turn myself in, not that I would stay and honestly, I couldn’t stay when I owned such a pretty thing like you a coffee, my mother raised me better,” His mother hadn’t raised him, but neither mentioned it. “And let’s be honest, I’m not made to be in jail.”

Bucky bit his bottom lip and looked around, no one had noticed anything strange, they weren’t going to either because except for SHIELD, nobody knew who was sitting there. “Well, consider your debt paid,” That was the most stupid thing to say, but the soldier had a lot of questions that weren’t meant to be asked in public. “You’re free to go.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m going… I wanted to see you first though,” Clint leaned forward like he was going to share a world-shattering secret with Bucky. “Can I ask for another favour?” The brunet nodded, “keep the phone, if you ever need me, I’ll come… just to apprehend me, alright?”

  
  


And that was the beginning of a friendship that shouldn’t have happened. Who started it? Neither of them knew. But Bucky sometimes woke up to texts from Barton, pictures of places or food or animals and other times they fell asleep talking about nothing at all. 

It was inexplicable how two people that stood on opposite sides of the law could be able to meet in the middle and see beyond crimes and avenging. Somehow Bucky knew he had found another Steve - which wasn’t necessarily good, to be honest - and he liked it. He liked Barton. Maybe a little too much. Barton had the kind of humour Bucky preferred and when the ex-assassin wasn’t having a good day, the archer would know and be there or not, respecting Bucky’s boundaries in a way that the team didn’t. Well, Bucy guessed the team had no boundaries given that they were the dysfunctional family everyone wished to have. 

And it was true, Bucky loved his dysfunctional family. Spending time with Bruce on the roof doing yoga, or having Tony explaining whatever he was doing in his workshop. He enjoyed sparring with Steve but loved when he did it with Natalia, the little spider had grown a lot since the Red Room and Bucky wasn’t afraid of hurting her as it happened with Sam. Sam who, despite being a little shit, was always willing to listen to him out when the memories got to be too much and Steve didn’t get it. 

Steve who was the mother hen of mother hens and got worse with time, but Bucky liked having someone from the past in the present who got things the rest of the team didn’t and the soldier was so fucking happy for his best friend for going out to draw. At least he wasn’t drawing nudes of Tony anymore - that had been awkward.

So, yeah, Bucky loved his team and their routines and their dynamic and maybe that was the reason why he felt bad for lying to them about Hawkeye. What was he supposed to say either way? ‘ _ Hey, guy, I speak on a regular basis with the asshole that fucked our missions on several occasions’ _ ? That would go so well… 

However, he regretted the secrecy when after a week, Clint hadn’t sent a message or called. Not only that, he stopped reading his messages and ignoring his phone calls. Every time his called when to voice mail, Bucky considered having the phone traced to face the little motherfucker that managed to get under his skin to just disappear without any explanation. And how sad was it that Clint had to disappear for Bucky to notice that his feelings weren’t admiration, or hate, or respect, or friendship? Or platonic for all that mattered! 

Thus, it started the long string of one-way messages from Bucky to Clint. Just little things, a dog he saw, a pizza he ate -  _ you don’t get to eat this delicious pizza because you’re gone! -  _ or informing when he was going out to a mission and he had to stop communication for a while -  _ Gone somewhere, be back in two weeks _ \- just in case the little blond decided to come back. 

It was during one of those missions that, while stuck in a safe house waiting to be extracted, someone knocked on his door. He was ready to just tell those idiots that the information for a sniper was their lifesaver when he was stopped on his tracks by the last person he imagined coming to get him. 

“Hey,” the tall blond man said with a stupidly juvenile smirk on his freakingly handsome face, “I traced your phone.”

The punch was justified, “Motherfucker!” That was also justified and pushing the groaning man inside the house and onto the sofa while Bucky got some ice for what was probably a broken nose was as well. 

“I deserved that,” Clint muttered while holding the pack of ice against his nose, that wasn’t broken. “Sorry I disappeared on you, honey, but I’m home….”

“Why did you disappeared?” Bucky was leaning against the wall with a frown. “I sent you messages, I called.”

“Mission went south, I had to lay low for a while and I wanted to tell you but I didn’t know if it was safe for you,” Alright, that made sense. Bucky hate it made sense. “But I read your messages, I knew you were away and it was the perfect opportunity to see you.”

With a sigh, Bucky sat down by the younger man, “There is only one bed…” 

“We can share,” the lecherous look Clint gave him made Bucky snort, “unless that will offend your delicate sensibilities.”

“Boy, you know nothing about my sensibilities, otherwise you would be aware that they aren’t that easily offended,” it just came out and Bucky felt the blush creeping up his neck and he wanted to facepalm for his stupidity. 

Barton just laughed and leaned forward, “So you wouldn’t be disgusted by laying down with a man like with a woman, Buckaroo?” 

It was incredible how this man could go from lecherous to flirty to serious in a matter of seconds and still be ballsy enough to plant his ugly mug where a man with a metal arm was able to break his nose. Though Bucky didn’t punch him or pushed him away, steel-grey eyes darting between Clint’s blue ones and his mouth. Clint’s tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip and Bucky found himself moving without a second thought, their mouths crashing together and… and it was  _ soft _ . A quick peek, and inch apart, and meeting again in the middle without a second to waste. 

“You talk like queer was invented in the last ten years, boy,” he whispered just before they dove in for another kiss, more desperate, backed by the mutual feelings they hadn’t dared speak aloud. 

  
  


Later, while they were laying in bed after cleaning their mess, Bucky couldn’t help but think of how this was not going to be forever and how much he wanted it to be forever. Instead of focusing on that though, he decided to, as he stared at the sleeping blond by his side, focus on whatever time they had before the world came knocking on their door. Maybe he should ask for vacations in the safe house. 

Yeah… A few weeks would suffice. If in that time he also managed to convince Clint to go back with him, well, Fury would give him a raise for getting an actual lover.


End file.
